Yann Martel - The High Mountains of Portugal

The interactions between the ape and the dogs vary greatly. At times they bask on the warm courtyard stones, their eyes closed, the only motion the rise and fall of their breathing, the only sound the odd snuffle. Then Odo raises an arm and taps a dog, showing his lower teeth in a grin. Or stands up and puts on a display, swaggering about erect on his legs, slapping and stamping the ground, huffing, hooting, and grunting. Tap, grin, and display all signal the same thing: It’s time to play! Play involves either Odo chasing the dogs, or the dogs chasing Odo, or, more often than not, everyone chasing everyone. It’s a rough, joyous riot in which dogs run, turn, twist, roll, jump up, scamper off, while Odo dashes or dodges, pounces or brakes, bounces off walls or scrambles across them, the whole accompanied by a deafening uproar of canine barks and primate shrieks. The ape is exceptionally agile. There is no corner from which he can’t escape, no dog that he can’t knock off its feet. Watching him makes Peter realize how much Odo restrains himself when they wrestle together. If Odo played with him the way he plays with the dogs, Peter would be in the hospital. The fun lasts until Odo falls over, breathless. The dogs, panting and dripping slobber, do the same.

Peter notes with interest the arrangement of the animals when they are at rest. Every time it is a different pattern. Nearly always one dog lies asleep with its head on Odo, while the others are nearby, piled up on each other or laid out this way and that. Sometimes Odo looks up at him and funnels his lips in a soundless hoo shape, the way he did when they first met, to salute him without waking up the dogs.

But diversion though it is, this play with the dogs is at times hair-raising, literally. There is always a feel of edginess, of a disquiet easily summoned. Every dog’s scamper starts with a cower. Peter wonders why the dogs always come back.

One day the animals are lying about in the mild Portuguese sun, seemingly without a care in the world, when an uproar erupts, with much whining and barking. Odo is at the centre of the turmoil. He displays, but not for play this time. With a terrifying, teeth-baring wraaaa cry, he throws himself upon a dog who has mysteriously offended. The poor canine becomes the recipient of a full-on thrashing. The harsh slaps and blows that land on its body echo in the courtyard. The dog whines pitifully in a high pitch. These pleas for mercy are mostly drowned out by Odo’s roar and by the other dogs, who are watching in a fever of anxiety, whining and howling and twitching and jerking about in circles with their tails tightly coiled between their legs.

Peter watches from the landing, petrified. The thought occurs to him: What if one day Odo finds fault with him?

Then it passes. After one last terrific slap, Odo throws the dog aside and moves away, his back turned to the assaulted animal. The dog lies prostrate, visibly trembling. The other dogs fall silent, though they still stare with their hair standing straight up and their eyes bulging. Odo’s breathing slows, and the dog’s trembling becomes intermittent. Peter thinks the incident is over, that each animal will now move off to lick its real or imaginary wounds. But a curious thing happens. The offending dog painfully rights itself. Stomach resting flat against the ground, it crawls over to Odo and begins a very low whine. It does not let up until Odo, without turning his head, brings out a hand and touches it. When he takes his hand back, the dog resumes its whining. Odo returns his hand to the dog’s body. After a while, the ape turns and moves closer and starts to groom the dog. The dog rolls onto its side and whines in a quieter tone. Odo’s hands work across its body. When one side is done, he lifts the dog and gently turns it over to groom its other side. When he is done, he lies right next to it and they both fall asleep.

The next morning, that very dog, limping, looking frazzled and bedraggled, drags itself into the courtyard. Even more surprising, when Odo joins the dogs, he flops himself down beside it, as if nothing untoward had happened the previous day. And for the next ten days, they are together all the time, in play as well as in rest.

Peter realizes that every conflict between Odo and the dogs ends in this way, with all tensions revealed and expelled, after which nothing remains, nothing lingers. The animals live in a sort of emotional amnesia centered in the present moment. Turmoil and upheaval are like storm clouds, bursting dramatically but exhausting themselves quickly, then making way once more for the blue sky, the permanent blue sky.

The dogs cower yet come back every day. Is he any different? He’s no longer palpably frightened of Odo. All the same, the ape does fill a room. He can’t be ignored. Peter’s heart at times still quickens upon seeing him. But it’s not fear, that’s not what he would call it anymore. It’s more a kind of nerve-racking awareness that doesn’t make him want to flee the ape’s presence but, on the contrary, to address it, because Odo always addresses his presence. After all, as far as he can tell, Odo invariably appears in a room because Peter is in it to start with. And whatever he might be doing before Odo walks in does not fill his consciousness the way dealing with Odo does. Always there is that gaze that swallows him. Always, without diminishment, there is that sense of wonder.

There, has he not answered the question about why the dogs return every day? Is there anything else that so captivates their minds, their being? No, there isn’t. So every morning they make their way back to the house — and every morning he is glad to wake not far from Odo.

The dogs carry lice, which they pass on to Odo. Peter uses a fine comb to get the vermin and their eggs out. And Odo finally gets the grooming challenge he yearns for when Peter too gets lice.

A few weeks later they’re returning from a walk in the fields of boulders. The weather is lovely, the land discreetly exuberant in its springtime greening, but Peter is tired and he’s looking forward to resting. A coffee would be nice. They head for the café. He sits down wearily. When his coffee arrives, he nurses it. Odo sits quietly.

Peter gazes outside — and it’s as if a pane of frosted glass has shattered and he sees with clarity what is out there. He can’t believe his eyes. Ben, his son Ben, is standing in the square, having just stepped out of a car.

Emotions congest him. Astonishment, worry — is something wrong? — but mainly pure, simple parental delight. His son, his son has come! It’s been nearly two years since he’s seen him.

He gets up and rushes out. “Ben!” he calls.

Ben turns and sees his father. “Surprise!” he says, embracing him. He too is quite clearly glad. “I got two weeks off — decided to see what you’re up to in this godforsaken place.”

“I’ve missed you so much,” Peter says, smiling. His son looks so dazzlingly young and vigorous.

“Jesus Christ!” Ben pulls back, a look of panic on his face.

Peter turns. It is Odo, who is rapidly knuckle-walking up to them, his face alight with curiosity. Ben looks like he might turn and run.

“It’s all right. He won’t hurt you. He’s just coming to say hi. Odo, this is my son, Ben.”

Odo comes up and sniffs at Ben and pats his leg. Ben is evidently apprehensive.

“Welcome to Tuizelo,” Peter says.

“They bite your face off,” Ben says. “I read about it.”

“This one won’t,” Peter replies.

Over the next ten days, Peter shares his life with his son. They talk, they walk. They obliquely mend relations, atoning for previous distance by acts of attentive proximity. The whole time Ben worries about Odo, about being attacked by him. He catches Peter wrestling with Odo once, a vaulting, turbulent circus. Peter hopes his son will join in, but he doesn’t — he holds back, his expression tense.